Inspector Singh Investigates (5 page)
Read Inspector Singh Investigates Online
Authors: Shamini Flint
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural, #International Mystery & Crime
Despite the poor architectural judgement, the streets had a certain charm. Singh supposed it was because, however peculiar, each addition was designed to reflect the owner's taste, rather than his wealth. Besides, many of the houses were rundown and needed a coat of paint. The brightest colours on the street were still the flowers, not paint jobs that looked like cake icing, as would have been the case in Singapore.
Inspector Singh got his bearings in consultation with a road map and set off towards the murder scene. It was a quiet part of the morning. There was not much traffic on the road. The school and work rush was over and the lunch rush had not started. He would have to come back in the evening and gauge the traffic. Was it likely that nobody had seen anything or were witnesses reluctant to come forward and be associated with this notorious case?
It took him five minutes to reach the spot where Alan had been shot. Here it was easier to imagine that the murderer had gone unnoticed. It was a quiet cul de sac. The crowded terraced houses had given way to individual bungalows hidden behind high walls and security cameras. The blue from swimming pools could be seen through front gates. Balinese–style villas complete with stone gargoyles and frangipani trees stood next door to mansions that had evidently used the White House as their design inspiration.
Inspector Singh dragged himself away from an awed perusal of the houses to contemplate the crime that had taken the life of one of its residents. According to his chauffeur's testimony, Alan Lee had alighted from his car, waved his driver away and turned to walk up the hill along the broad, quiet road leading to his unhappy home. He had not gone further than fifty yards when he met the person who had shot him. The murder weapon had not been recovered although the police had scoured the drains and the rubbish tips over a five–hundred–yard radius. Alan Lee's valuables, from his watch to his gold cufflinks, were left untouched. The murderer had wanted the only thing that a man of his wealth could not replace – his life.
The inspector stood silently, looking around him. Trying to understand, trying to visualise the murder. He was convinced, based on the forensics, that Alan Lee had known his killer. It was possible that the perpetrator had been frightened off before he had completed the robbery. But it struck the inspector as improbable. It was such a risky murder. It seemed farfetched that robbery was a motive or, if it was, that the killer would have abandoned his crime before completing it.
Singh walked all the way up to the gates of Alan Lee's residence. He did not know if Chelsea was home and he did not seek to find out. He had nothing to report. There would be time enough to visit the widow when he had made some progress in the investigation into the murder of her ex–husband. She wanted him to exonerate her brother–in–law, Jasper Lee. The inspector did not conduct murder investigations based on who he most wanted to exculpate. He conducted investigations to find a murderer.
In his heart he knew he would be pleased if he could find proof, contrary to the widow's wishes, that implicated Jasper Lee. If he could prove to Chelsea that Jasper had done it, his confession was in earnest, she would abandon this effort to prove him innocent and get on with her life. Inspector Singh was not of a mind to contemplate the alternatives. If Jasper had not done it, the prime suspect would once again be the ex–wife of the victim.
Singh decided he needed access to Jasper Lee. He dug out his mobile phone and called Sergeant Shukor.
He said without preamble, 'Singh here. I need to see Jasper Lee!'
'Why?'
'Chelsea has asked me to look into the murder. Find some mitigating circumstances if I can.'
He decided the complete truth – that he was seeking to absolve the eldest brother – would be too much for the young sergeant to stomach.
There was hesitation at the other end. At last the policeman said, 'I can get you in. But if Inspector Mohammad finds out, I'll be in big trouble.'
'I won't tell him if you don't.'
The men sitting around the polished wood table, made from the cross–section of a single massive tree, were pleased. Things were going well. China's need for wood products was inexhaustible. Ever since the severe flooding around the Yangtze River a few years back, the Chinese government had cracked down hard on excessive or illegal logging on the mainland. But this had not in any way dampened the demand for wood for the massive ongoing construction site that was modern China. And the authorities, so belatedly mindful of the degradation to their own environment, turned a blind eye to wood sourced from overseas. As a result, primary forests across Asia, from Papua New Guinea to Borneo, were being denuded at a rate that would soon see the end of the great jungles of Asia.
None of these things were a concern to the men in the room. They were at the profitable end of the destruction. The four of them were fellow directors of Alan Lee's timber company. The boss was dead but the men were still doing their best to make money for the company under the guidance of their new boss, Lee Kian Min. Besides, Kian Min had been running the show for years. It would have been much harder to carry on if he had been the one killed.
Kian Min walked into the room, took the seat at the head of the table, received their respectful greetings and said, 'We are increasing our production out of Borneo.'
There were nods of approval all around.
'How come? I thought we had logged all the non–reserve land?' asked one of the men with nonchalant curiosity.
'Don't worry about it,' said Kian Min. 'We have found new areas.'
The others understood the implications of this. They had been in the timber trade their whole lives and their fathers before that. New areas after generations of intense logging could only mean wildlife reserves and protected forests.
'You need to be careful – there is a lot of concern. Those Penan are in the news every day,' said one of the men worriedly.
'I said no need to worry about it. I have everything under control.'
'What about the bio–fuels project?'
'That is also under control.'
Inspector Singh's sister was hanging clothes out to dry on the washing line attached to two iron T–shaped poles at the back of her house. She had a clothes dryer indoors. Her son had bought it for her as a present. She loved showing it off to people. 'That clothes dryer, my son bought for me as a present. He is doing very well, you know, and doesn't want his old mother to work too hard.'
But she never actually used it. Baljit was not convinced that clothes squashed into a dryer would get a proper airing. She was sure that the dark recesses of the machine's gaping maw contained mould and germs. The sun and wind had dried her family's clothes for generations and she was not going to change that. But she was very proud of the modern equipment taking up space in the laundry room and the son who had bought it for her.
Across the fence, her neighbour was also hanging
clothes so it was natural to gravitate to the boundary to exchange words as they had done for the past twenty years.
Baljit opened the conversation with her usual directness. She had something to boast about. 'My brother got that Chelsea Liew out of jail, you know.'
'What brother?'
'Singapore brother, lah. He's a very senior policeman!'
'That fat one is your brother, ah?'
'Yes. He got that girl, the one who killed her husband, out of jail.'
'I thought someone else confessed what?'
'Yes, yes. But why so suddenly – after my brother came from Singapore?'
'You think he made him confess? But in Singapore, police are not allowed to beat people.'
Baljit nodded her head. 'I still think the wife did it. Maybe she bribed the police to let her out?' She added as an afterthought in case this should reflect badly on her brother, 'Malaysian police, I mean. Singapore police cannot bribe, also.'
They both stopped to ponder this incorruptibility.
The Chinese woman across the fence said, 'My son says very easy one to bribe when you are caught in a speed trap.'
This sentiment drew no censure from the policeman's sister. 'Ya, you are right, but speeding ... murder, different, lah!'
Ten
'Chelsea does not accept that you killed your brother.'
'And you believe her rather than me?' Jasper's question to the inspector seemed reasonable.
'Actually, no,' said the inspector.
'Then why are you here?'
'I'm not sure,' the inspector confessed with a sigh, rubbing his eyes with stubby fingers. 'I am going to lose my job when my bosses get wind of this ... I guess I could never resist the request of a pretty woman!'
'Tell me about it,' said Jasper. 'Chelsea can be very persuasive.'
The inspector was quick to latch on to this. 'Are you saying that she persuaded you to confess?'
Jasper looked pained. 'Don't be ridiculous! She would never do that. She didn't try. And anyway, why would I agree?'
The inspector changed tactics. 'Look, I accept you murdered your brother. At least tell me why. Then I can convince Chelsea you did it and go home. She does not seem to be prepared to accept your word for it.' He added a sweetener. 'Maybe I can find some
mitigation – save you from hanging at least!'
'Like what?'
'I don't know. I came here from Singapore last week, for God's sake! Anything – self–defence, provocation, accident. Anything!'
Jasper looked at the inspector long and hard.
The policeman could see that prison was taking its toll on the man. He was pale. He had lost much of the colour of the outdoorsman in a few short days. His skin sagged, the weight loss too sudden for the elasticity of his skin. In prison clothes, his tragicomic face emphasised the tragic.
At last, he seemed to come to a decision. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and said, 'There is something.'
'Well, that's nice,' said the inspector dryly.
The prisoner ignored the sarcasm. He sat in the plastic chair, elbows on the table, deep in thought.
The inspector thought that Jasper's receding hairline had more grey in it than the first time they had met. He wondered again what led men to commit crimes when the physical and mental consequences were too much for the frailty of the human body and spirit. With Chelsea, at least he had been able to understand why she might have turned to murder as a solution. She must have felt there was no other option to keep her kids away from Alan Lee. But the inspector could not see what might have driven Jasper to such an act.
The inspector waited for Jasper to speak. He was used to these moments. The quiet had a pregnant quality, like a city just before dawn, teetering on the edge of a noisy awakening. Singh had been in innumerable interviews with prisoners as they sat silently pondering what truths to tell and what lies to invent.
Eventually, they would make up their minds and start to speak, uttering carefully honed exculpatory sentences that they had played in their minds over and over again in the long days and nights in their cells, clinging to the hope that one of the words would be the 'Open Sesame' that got them out of jail.
The act of speaking, the release from silence, invariably meant that the prisoner would say too much, give something away, let slip an honest truth in the midst of the self–justification. Inspector Singh, like a fine piano–tuner, could listen to these verbal outpourings and pick up those hints of expression or emotion that were off–key and those that rang true. And so he waited for Jasper Lee to open his mouth, and a door to the truth, at the same time.
'There is someone to see you, ma'am. He says it's urgent.' The maid managed, in the great tradition of household workers, to convey far more than she said in words. Looking up at her, Chelsea could tell, from the slight emphasis on the word 'someone', that she did not know and did not approve of the guest who was waiting to see her employer. From the hint of a raised eyebrow she knew that her helper did not believe for a second that the matter on which he wanted to see her was urgent. Nevertheless, the maid knew better than to substitute her own judgement for that of Chelsea's, especially in these difficult times. She stood waiting for instructions.
Chelsea got out of the easy chair she had been lying in to read court papers. She went to the window and parted the curtains slightly. A short, overweight Chinese man stood at the entrance holding a file.
She said, 'Let him in.'
The man was sweaty. The few strands of hair he had left were arranged carefully across his scalp. His eyes had disappeared so far into the rolls of fat on his face that only two small, black pinpricks remained. Despite all this, he managed to convey, through a puffed chest and a big smile, that he was pleased with himself.
Chelsea said, 'Good morning, Mr Chan. What can I do for you?'
'Nothing, nothing! But I can do something for you, yes, yes.'
Chelsea waited politely.
'You remember you ask me to investigate your husband Alan Lee? Find out what he was up to ... about other women and things?'
The maid, having made a tactical decision to dust the next room, heard this and nodded her head wisely. A private investigator – that made sense.
Chelsea said, 'Yes, of course I remember – but you might not have heard that my husband is dead. So, if this is about your fees, please send me your bill for the hours you worked.'
Mr Chan had one very long nail on his left hand. It curled. He used it carefully to pick his nose. He said, 'I know Mr Alan is dead. I found out some things – I was going to pass them to you – but you also went to jail.'
Meeting with silence, the private investigator became garrulous. He realised that the tactics he used to provoke reminisces from cheating husbands were now being used on him. It did not stop him talking. He said, 'When you come out of jail, I thought better to pass you the file. You can read it. Always good for the wife to know everything. I know
Mr Alan dead ...' The man wiped his brow with a short shirt sleeve and got to the point. 'My bill is on top.'
Chelsea nodded, keen to get rid of this gross little man. She said, 'All right, I will look at the file. If the information is useful, I will send you a cheque.'
'Cash, please.'
She raised an eyebrow.
'Otherwise, my wife will take the money.'
Chelsea nodded abruptly. Mr Chan understood that he was being dismissed and walked out of the door, smiling broadly. He did not doubt he would get his money.
The widow watched him go. She felt another blast of anger at her dead husband for putting her in a position where she had been forced to consort with lowlifes in an effort to dig up some dirt that she could use in the custody hearings.
Mr Chan had not been the only one she had hired – and a few of them had come back with enough information for her to prove adultery. She remembered how she was so absolutely sure that she was going to win custody of the children and put the whole unhappy history of her marriage to Alan Lee behind her. And then he had dropped his bombshell. He was Moslem, so were the kids – he should have custody. Chelsea Liew, surrounded by uncertainty, fear and doubt, was convinced of just one thing at that moment in time – Alan Lee had deserved to die.
It was not apparent that the man was Caucasian. He was burnt nut brown by the sun. This was not a superficial tan but deeply embedded into his skin which was leathery and lined like cured animal skin.
His hair was unkempt, streaked with grey, greasy and tied back with a length of twine. His clothes were worn through with makeshift patches over the knees. It was only when he looked up – as he did now at the policeman behind the desk – that his piercing blue eyes gave his race away.
The accent was pure Queen's as well – England not Brooklyn. 'These people are being terrorised and I want to know what you are going to do about it.'
The policeman said, 'I will report to the senior officer when he comes in – for now you fill in the incident report. That is our procedure.'
'I tell you that the weakest members of your society are being hounded off their land and this is your response?'
'You are foreigner – why you come here and shout at me? You do not understand the Malaysian way. These Penan are troublemakers. You should not believe everything they tell you.'
'Tell me? I've seen the destruction with my own eyes. A pregnant woman died!'
'I will report it, sir.'
'You do that.'
The policeman watched the Englishman walk out the door, slamming it behind him. As if the exit was his cue, the senior officer, wearing a tan bush jacket with the gold frame of his reading glasses poking out of a pocket, appeared at the door to his office. He had been listening to proceedings quietly in his room. The two men looked at each other.
'What should we do?' asked the junior man. 'If he calls the newspapers ...' He trailed off into silence.
They both knew the consequences. There was no need to spell it out and leave the words hanging like prophecies in the air.
'He must not go to the newspapers. You know what to do.'
The senior policeman went back into his office and closed the door with exaggerated care.
The younger man sat quietly at his desk for a moment. He looked at the screen saver picture of his wife. She was smiling shyly at the camera – pretty, demure, deeply honest. She was pregnant with their first child now. He wondered if it was true that a Penan woman had lost her life. He wished that there was something he could do to rewind the clock. To crawl back up the slippery slope that had led him to this point. Be the husband and father his family deserved. It was too late. All he could do now was try and keep from being found out. Keep the family safe and happy in their ignorance. He unbuttoned his holster and slipped his revolver out. He had never used it except on the firing range. He checked that it was loaded, slipped it back into its case and walked out of the door onto the dusty street.
Rupert Winfield was staying at a Chinese lodging house in Kuching. It was a favourite haunt of backpackers. It was cheap and had in residence a loudmouthed Chinese woman. She collected the rent, kept the place spotless, wore nylon floral dresses and fake pearls all day and in all weathers and cooked up cheap but tasty meals of fried rice in the cafe she ran on the ground floor for any of her guests who needed an inexpensive meal to go with their cheap room. She was known as Mrs Wong although in the many years that she had run her establishment, there had never been any sign of Mr Wong. She had a large notice board on one wall of her cafe and it was covered with photos and notes from the young men and women who had passed through her doors on their way to or from the Borneo interior. All were messages of thanks for a motherly outpost in a threatening world.
She was always proud to receive a new memento for her wall and the little ceremony with which she greeted an addition never varied. She would slit open the envelope, remove the picture or card, put it carefully on the table, cut out any return address, placing it in a box on her desk already filled with yellowing paper, walk down to her wall, examine it carefully, smile as one or two faces brought back an amusing memory, pin her new addition carefully in a vacant spot, take a step back to admire her handiwork and then sit down to a cup of coffee in a clear glass mug – stirring the thick layer of condensed milk at the bottom until it was thoroughly mixed with the jet black, bitter coffee on top.
A policeman walked into the cafe. He looked around carefully, searching for someone, and then walked out again. Mrs Wong, watching the street with the contented pleasure of a hardworking woman who knew this was a deserved interlude before she went back to iron–fresh sheets, could see him on the road, a dark silhouette against the bright sun. He tapped his foot impatiently, as if his body was annoyed at the indecisiveness of his mind. At last he came back in and walked over to the small desk that served as a reception for the hotel. It was unmanned and he looked around – seeking someone to attend to him. Mrs Wong waddled over. He looked at her and asked brusquely, 'Mr Winfield – he stay here?'
She nodded.
'Which room?'
'Why you ask me that?'
'None of your business!' The young man's hand caressed the butt of his gun for a second and she could see the beads of sweat on his hairline and upper lip.
He asked again, 'Which room? I know he stay here.'
She said, 'One, one, five.'
He made for the stairs.
'Where are you going?'
'Stay out of police business, old woman!'
She said mildly, 'He is not in his room.'
This stopped him in his tracks. Mrs Wong nodded to the little pigeonholes behind her. His strained eyes found the slot marked '115'. A key was bundled into it.
'Do you know when he will come back?'
'Not sure.' She shrugged, indicating that her rules were easy and her guests independent.
The policeman said firmly, 'Don't tell him that the police are looking for him. I will come back later.'
He did not go far. She could see him standing under the limited shade of a casuarina tree across the road, watching the entrance to the hotel. Occasionally, he would glance up and down the street. Mostly, he kept his eyes trained on her front door. She went back to her cup of coffee, grown cold in the interim, and made a face of disgust when she had a sip. She put it down, went to a cupboard, took out a mop and bucket, shouted in Cantonese to the staff that she would see to the bathrooms upstairs and started up the stairs. She could feel the eyes of the policeman on her back. As she reached the semi–cool darkness at the top of the stairs, out of sight of the road, she hastily put down the bucket and hurried to Room 117, tapping gently on the door. Rupert Winfield opened it, looking haggard and dishevelled.
She looked past him into the room lit with a single, bright fluorescent tube. His clothes were scattered on the bed. An empty suitcase on the floor suggested that he was starting to pack.
She said, 'You better hurry, lah. The police are looking for you.'
Chelsea opened the file the private investigator had given her. There was a note on the top with the name and address of a woman, 'Sharifah Abdul Rahman, #04–04, Rose Condominium, Ampang'. It was stapled to the investigator's bill for two thousand ringgit. Her eyebrows went up. Mr Chan must be convinced of the value of the information he had provided and expected her to be willing to pay handsomely for it.